Seagate launches 1.5TB desktop hard drive

Largest capacity jump in over 50 years

Seagate Technology has announced the world's first 1.5TB desktop hard drive, as well as half-terabyte laptop hard drives based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.

The Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB is the 11th generation of Seagate's flagship drive for desktop PCs, and its release marks the single largest capacity jump the more than 50 years hard drives have been around - a 500GB lead over the previous 1TB capacity limit.

"Organisations and consumers of all kinds worldwide continue to create, share and consume digital content at levels never before seen, giving rise to new markets, new applications and demand for desktop and notebook computers with unprecedented storage capacity, performance and reliability," Michael Wingert, Seagate executive vice-president and general manager, Personal Compute Business, said.

Seagate's Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 hard drives are the fourth generation of laptop hard drives to use PMR. The Momentus 5400.6, a 5,400rpm drive, combines a SATA 3Gbps interface with capacities ranging from 120GB to 500GB with an 8MB cache.

The Momentus 7200.4 hard drive, with its 7,200rpm drive and SATA 3Gbps interface, comes in capacities ranging from 250GB to 500GB with a 16MB cache.

The Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive packs 1.5TB of capacity on four platters uses a SATA 3Gbps interface delivering a sustained data rate of up to 120MBps. The 3.5in drive is also offered in capacities of 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, 500GB, 320GB and 160GB with cache options of 32MB and 16MB.

Shipments of the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB are set to begin August 2008. The Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 hard drives are expected to ship in Q4 this year.